OK, so B2Gold was up around $4.50 just a while ago. Right now it's at $3.

Frankly, I don't think the fear of nationalization in Nicaragua should be that serious.

So, since B2 is releasing earnings tonight after the bell, let's have a little bet. Just give me an over/under.

Will B2Gold's earnings be good? Or bad?

I'm going to bet (not with any money) that B2's earnings will suck. I'm betting this way because the market's been clobbering them. So either someone's got access to priveleged info, or they have spies on the ground who know B2's production situation.

Most important is the opinion of Adrian Day, whose outlook I want to keep following because he actually seems to know what he's doing:

“Financial turmoil and easy money should see gold rally,” said Adrian Day, the president of Adrian Day Asset Management in Annapolis, Maryland. “Once the liquidation phase is over, gold could rebound smartly.”

Genesis on Belgian TV in 1972 doing "Fountain of Salmacis", because if it's one thing the United Kingdom of Self-Consciously Large Britain and The Bits of North Ireland That Are Protestant really needs, it's for Belgium to be the keepers of their national heritage for them.

Seriously, where's the frickin' BBC recording of Genesis live? Probably got bulked and taped over with episodes of Last Of The Summer Wine, just like most of the Cook & Moore stuff.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Toronto Grope & Flail has an article on the senior gold miners, where such luminaries as Tye Domi Burt, Chuck "Blue" Jeannes and Sean-Boy have "put the band back together, man!" in a popular revisit of their March "we don't suck" tour.

Hey Tye! Here's a further question for you. Your company's trading at 10x adjusted net earnings; exactly how much should Kinross be trading for? I mean, being the CEO of a major gold miner, you probably know how to generate a stock price target, either discounted NPV or EPS multiple. That's simple accounting stuff, you probably took a class on it once. So, you wanna post a price target calc for Kinross, so we can see precisely how undervalued your company is?

And Chuck joins in: “Clearly, over the last two years or so, the market has not been willing to pay for the increased cash flow and earnings that we’ve generated based on rising gold prices.”

Wow, I feel so ashamed; I must have completely missed all that time this year when the senior miners have been generating increased cash flow and earnings. I guess I was stoned or something. But that's okay... the rest of the market's picked up on this, right?

Right?

I mean, with gold going up 60% in the last 3 years, you're right, you guys should be swimming in FCF. Your stock prices should be way up.

Survey says?

GG down 35% from peak....

I!Am!Gold!! down 58% from peak....

Kinross down... 68% or something?

Geez... I was going to suggest that you guys buy out Rio Alto, then all quit and make Alex Black the CEO of your companies. Maybe he could turn them around.

But at this rate, pretty soon he's going to be able to buy you guys out instead.

Oh, not only that. They evolved the gene on a plasmid that allows for horizontal transfer of the gene to other species whenever they decide to do that freaky interspecies bacteria rumpy-pumpy that's so popular on Youporn.

Oh, not only that, but India's a big petri dish with open sewers where half the population poops in the street.

Oh, not only that, but the gene can definitely be transferred to the bubonic plague germ. Which India has in abundance. And tuberculosis. Which India has in abundance.

Oh, not only that, but this antibiotic immunity gene from India has already begun showing up in Britain and Scandinavia.

GDXJ is no longer printing an engulfing candle. Neither is GLDX or SIL. COPX is hideous.

So maybe the engulfing candle that you see this minute on the GDX chart was just a gap fill? Hm?

Though it might be that GDX going up is significant considering GLD and SLV and JJC are down, and UUP is strongly up, and JNK is slightly down, and EEM is down, and FXI is about to collapse through support.

After all, all of those signs taken together mean that GDX going up today is a contradiction of the very thesis for GDX. GDX should be down. GLD and SLV are below support, EEM/China markets are looking weak, and the risk-off trade is in full force; why should GDX go up?

Who knows? TA is bullshit. Personally I don't think the OMG Teh Greese is over just yet. Plus, Spain 10Y closed at over 6% today. There are also 100 Euro bank downgrades coming down the pipe this week.

Maybe it's simply that every gold miner analyst in the world has called yesterday a bottom.

Then again, maybe that's enough? The prices we were seeing for some of these stocks were utter bullshit anyway, no? Then again, maybe FVI is only worth $3 if silver collapses to $20, eh?

I'm going to go all Dominic Frisby and wait til the EMAs are in an upward trend. I bet Frisby hasn't lost any money these past few months! I bet Frisby's laughing at us all! Damn you Frisby! Damn you and your foolproof market timing system!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Jim Sinclair has something to say, so I with my little 400-hits-a-day blog should be able to get away with reposting much (not all) of it. After all, you were going to read it anyway, right?

Jim Sinclair is not simply a gold bug; he successfully has called
every major move in the precious metal — both up and down — over a
generation. But he is not merely a market guru either. Sinclair has had a
love affair with markets for 50 years. He has owned brokerages,
clearing firms, mining companies and a precious metals dealer. His
Sinclair Group of Companies, founded in 1977, offered brokerage services
in stocks, bonds and commodities operating in New York, Kansas City,
Toronto, Chicago, London and Geneva until he sold them in 1983. At one
time he was considered the largest gold trader in the world, but today
he is running his African-based Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Company
and the MineSet web site that provides unique macroeconomic information
to his loyal followers. Sinclair is a good person to listen to.

Futures Magazine: You have been right on gold for years. How?Jim Sinclair: Gold has been a primary focus of mine
for 50 years; I’m 71, if you put enough time into a subject you probably
ought to get to know it. It became obvious to me that gold had
performed extraordinarily well as a currency vs. the dollar; it
performed very well in the 1980s and it performed very well on the
downside. It was obvious to me that a turn was coming in 2001 and we
reached a high in the U.S. currency and accordingly I felt we reached a
low in gold.FM: As opposed to some gold analysts, you have not been a perma-bull.JS: There was an article in The Wall Street Journal
in the 1980s that said “Bull takes off his horns,” which dealt with my
feeling that the gold market had maximized its price and for at least 15
years it would not be central to investor interest. I put an ad in Barron’s
in 1974, which they had a hard time with but finally accepted that
[stated] “Gold at $900.” My call over the past 10 years or so has been
$1,650. It has gone beyond that; I put it as a minimum it would trade at
in 2011. My calls in gold have had reasons and so far have been
accurate.FM: You have done so many different things; talk about your background.JS: I was a general partner at two New York Stock
exchange firms. I have owned my own brokerage firm, clearing [members],
arbitrage firm, minor metals dealer in London, and I began my sale of
those when I called the top in 1980. I felt that the markets had to be
approached in a different way and the things that I had done in the
1960s through 1980 weren’t applicable. I was rumored to be the largest
gold trader in the world back in the ‘68 to 1980 period and that was a
great compliment. Not necessarily true, but I was a significant trader
and bear in mind I was a kid and I had no eraser on my pencil and didn’t
believe I could be wrong. As you mature you find out you can be.
Carrying the type of commitment I carried in those days right now would
put me in the hospital if not the emergency ward because of the
volatility of the markets. The ownership of the gold companies was
simply a different way of approaching the gold market. I am a CEO and
president of a public company that is involved in businesses in
Tanzania, East Africa.

FM: The bear market in gold that began after the 1980 peak
lasted 20 years. Where are we in the lifespan of the current bull
market?JS: My first prediction was 15 years, so I was
wrong, it lasted 20 years. Right now, in Gann terms, we are at the
beginning of the fifth wave. I would say in terms of time, the first
possible period for maximizing a price on gold is early 2015. [Currently
the market] simply might be the same as when gold went over $1,000 the
first time and went back down to $750-$800. That was a shift in Gann
terms; we may be in a similar shift right now.FM: Gann?JS: I am primarily a fundamentalist, but I have a tremendous respect for timing and timing is technical.FM: What are the factors that are affecting gold? Do you look
at traditional supply and demand factors, or is gold being moved by
larger geopolitical concerns?JS: You have to look at traditional supply/demand
first, but the question is, are we dealing with a commodity or are we
dealing with a currency? Historically gold has been a currency;
[currently] gold is acting as if it is a currency. The price that gold
went to [on its low] at $248 per oz. was perfect performance in terms of
a currency. The price that gold is now, $1,660, is perfect performance
in terms of a currency. We were in a unique period of time where we may
very well be changing our monetary system as a product of the various
strains and as a product of the means of meeting these crises in the
marketplace. The great default was handled magnificently in terms of
public relations and in terms of financial underpinnings to the point
that it almost became a non-event. Yet it is an event, and the failure
of sovereign debt is something that factors into all currencies, not
only the currency of the debtor who failed. This period we are going
through now, which I believe is a pause similar to the [one] that took
place the first time it went over $1,000, is not terminal in terms of
the market having maxed out its price but rather a shift during a period
of psychology where the means to overcome the problems have, in a
market sense, been successful. Yet, everything has consequences and the
consequences for the means of overcoming the problems are yet to be
faced.FM: What do you mean by changing our currency status?JS: Well, government moving more into the system
than away from the system; more into central banks than out of central
banks. We are not making a voluntary change, but circumstances are
bringing about a change. There was a meeting of the BRICS (Brazil,
Russia, India, China and South Africa) [recently] that discussed setting
up their own [International Monetary Fund] and also their own currency
bloc. The euro is inexplicable right now above $1.30 if you heard all of
the bearishness on it. The euro is probably going to be with us for a
very long time and will come through change solidly. The dollar was the
reserve currency of choice and became the reserve currency by default,
meaning you just had it and it has recently begun to be replaced by
other currencies as an international settlement mechanism.FM: Our last profile suggested it would take at least 20 years to replace the dollar as a reserve currency.JS: I think that is wrong. The dollar isn’t going to
be replaced; [it] always will be there, but as far as a settlement
currency, weekly, almost daily, you see the dollar mechanism for
settlement being replaced by other currencies. Especially by the
internationalization of the Chinese currency. Nothing is going to
replace the dollar, but it is the utilization and value that factor into
markets.FM: Will it be replaced as a global reserve currency?JS: [It is] a global reserve currency by default. If
the dollar was a global reserve currency by choice, international
purchasing of U.S. Treasury instruments [would] be rising, not falling.
All these headwinds against the dollar do not change it as a reserve
currency but take it from a reserve currency of choice to a reserve
currency by default. We are going to break down into three trading
blocs: the yuan bloc, the euro block and the U.S. bloc. You already can
see that by the Swiss having attached their currency to the euro instead
of the dollar. That is the beginning of a currency bloc.

FM: You also mentioned the Brics having a bloc.JS: The Brics [met on March 29] in India. According
to the release on the meeting [they were] to discuss their own bank of
an IMF type and also look toward increased settlement in contracts in
their own currencies. Now the dollar will remain a major settlement
currency, but the question of value deals with momentum of utilization,
not with political opinions.FM: How will that affect the U.S. economy?JS: The net effect in the change of settlement is a
mirror reflection of the emerging economic impact of others. I am not
suggesting the U.S. goes down, I am only suggesting that when you have
billions of citizens and you enfranchise a very small percentage of
those in the position of consumers, you get the tremendous economic
impact that you’ve noticed in China. China and India are headed to
leading the world economies with the United States. Now who is going to
be first, second and third is something that can be argued but the three
major economic powers in the world are going to be the U.S., India and
China.FM: There are benefits to having the reserve currency. How will that change?JS: There is a serendipitous but huge demand factor
that a reserve currency enjoys as the settlement mechanism for
international contracts. That is the dollar weakness now. Part of that
demand factor will be going away as a result of utilization of other
currencies that didn’t exist prior to the machinations that we just have
gone through since 2008. It will take away some of the
predominance--politically, socially and economically--that is inherent
with a reserve currency and with sound monetary management of that
reserve currency. This is what gold is all about. Gold is the currency
of choice. The difference between gold as a currency of choice is that
gold has no liabilities attached to it. It owes nobody anything, while
every currency has liabilities attached to it that have to be
[considered] in its international valuation through the market
mechanism.FM: Are you talking for individuals or for governments?JS: It’s both. The period we just have come through
has shown an increase in public interest in gold through central banks
who see selling and began accumulating. It also has shown a significant
alternative investment that very large investors have selected and
participated in.FM: Is it in periods of stress that gold changes from a commodity to a currency?JS: That is one viewpoint, but gold was perfectly
valued at $248 in terms of the U.S. dollar. When you get down to price
of production it is rare than any commodity can exist for a significant
time below the cost [of production]. The argument that gold was a
commodity at $248 has its basis in the cost of production but the
argument that gold is a commodity is a failure to compare it to its
currency role, which it was performing perfectly by declining for 20
years.FM: What about silver?JS: Silver is not money for one practical reason: It
is too heavy. Gold is extremely portable. If you wanted to buy a
pick-up truck you could put the money in your lefty pocket in gold but
if you wanted to buy it with silver even at today’s prices you would
need a pick-up truck full of silver. Silver is not as monetary as gold.

FM: In 2006 you put out an economic formula with some scary consequences, Can you explain it?JS: The formula simply says that as business
declines, it impacts government. It impacts government in terms of taxes
received and the [affect] on government becomes a multiplier factor on
the problem, because once the government becomes fiscally tight, [it] as
a business begins to contract. The contracting business called
government prevents a significant recovery [for] the general public and
it is formula that feeds on itself until there is a point of
intervention. When the intervention comes, be it a natural turn in
economics or the civil conservation corps, you begin to have a
significant turn in business. The fact that our recovery and our
reaction to crisis has been to save the financial world but not to do
much in terms of fiscal stimulation has resulted in bottom-bouncing
rather than a significant economic recovery.FM: The formula states rising interest rates will lead to
geometric increases in U.S. debt to an eventual downward spiral “of
unparalleled dimension.” JS: That occurs when you are not doing QE
(quantitative easing). If you are not buying 62% of U.S. debt, which the
Fed has done in the last 12 months, the cost of money would be
astronomical. So you are forced into QE, that factors into gold.FM: So they turned your theory around by intervention in interest rates?JS: Artificial non-economic buying of government
debt. If the Fed was not in the market doing what they are doing, rates
would be wild. That is why some of the greatest names in the bond market
have failed when they went bearish in bonds last year and they are more
cautious this year. There are reasons to be bearish, but you can’t be
bearish in light of QE. You don’t fight the government or fight the Fed.
If you do that you stand in front of a locomotive, a locomotive
[currently] dedicated to keep interest rates low.FM: Is that a good thing?JS: It is a necessary thing. Anybody who says that
Bernanke or the U.S. Fed acted ineptly is not a practical person. They
did what they had to do. If they had not performed as they did and as
they are right now, circumstances would not be tolerable. They did what
they had to do.FM: Is it sustainable?JS: No. Historically debt has to be paid and if you
have financial difficulties, you can inflate your way out of it or
deflate your way out of it. Historically inflating your way out of it
has been the method chosen because of political prerogatives. The whole
theory of kicking a can down the road is, economics will recover in
order to heal the balance sheet problems, therefore making the methods
used in monetary stimulation self-canceling.
Bernanke has done exactly what he had to do. If I was given the job
of saving the financial industry in 2008 there was no other alternative.
The whole thesis of that alternative is you do save business, and
business turns. And because of the positive nature of the underlying
business having turned, the liquidity can be drained practically without
stopping the forward progression. That point hasn’t been reached. You
are trying to play a symphony and if we [have] an economic recovery of
significance, the symphony can be played. The reason gold is at a pause
point is because there is an assumption that business activity is
reaching a point that is take-off speed for recovery. That is the
psychology of the marketplace. Gold is a reflection of that as a
currency in competition with the U.S. dollar. Gold has a mind of its
own, and it is to balance the international balance sheet of the United
States or whatever the reserve currency is.

FM: What is it telling us now?JS: What gold telling us now is the concern over
[the] crisis is somewhat less, yet the underlying necessity of an
economic recovery, which would be self-canceling in terms of liquidity
injected into the economy via balance sheet repair, has yet to surface
fundamentally. That battle will be fought in the relationship between
the dollar and gold, and it will be determined in 2012, one way or the
other. The bottom-bouncing we have been doing is not sustainable for a
full year. One side of the team is going to win and one side of the team
is going to lose. The swing factor is U.S. economics. If U.S. economics
were to significantly improve, then there would be balance sheet
repair. Then the dollar would be in a macro sense repairing itself, not
requiring injections of liquidity to maintain the status quo. When the
liquidity comes in only to fill a hole of loss in a banking system, net
net zero. That is not going to make those banks lend anymore to
individual businesses.

FM: Will the economic crisis come to a head this year?JS: Either we do get a recovery or we don’t. A
recovery is required in order to have a practical method for draining
liquidity and not going into significant inflation. The operative
[phrase] is ‘if there is a practical method.’FM: Can’t we just maintain this moderate recovery?JS: Carry-on of a moderate recovery would keep us
doing this great choreographer’s financial dance that might work, but it
doesn’t take us out of a situation where there are significant risks.
When you put this much money [into] an economy, you should get a
recovery much stronger than we have. That is why Bernanke was so
surprised it didn’t occur. The reason why it didn’t occur is because the
money went into the banks to fill a black hole or to make a derivative
perform when the counterparty was insolvent. Anybody who says Bernanke
is a dope or didn’t react properly is a fool. He did what he had to do.FM: Was the situation that dire?JS: It was dire beyond your wildest imagination. The
recovery they made from that dire moment at the insolvency of Lehman is
an accomplishment few people recognize. It would have been worse than
[the Great Depression]; $1.144 quadrillion according to BIS in unfunded
liabilities. Skeleton contracts floating around the earth. The reason we
haven’t had a significant recovery is budget deficit restrictions
forbidding the use of fiscal stimulation. You had Roosevelt go out and
build roads, build trails, build [dams]. He did everything he knew to
put a chicken in every pot. We have done nothing on that side because we
can’t afford to, our deficit is too big. So all that could be done is
what Bernanke did. His tool box you could have put in your vest pocket.
It is called quantitative easing--there is no other tool.FM: Isn’t there the risk of hyperinflation?JS: If everything went wrong? Yes, but that is the
extreme. The 62% of U.S. debt bought by the Fed in the last 12 months is
debt monetization; debt monetization is the mechanism historically in
every hyperinflation since Roman times. In order to keep rates low what
do you do? You have to buy your own bonds. What is it called?
Quantitative easing. What is quantitative easing? Debt monetization.FM: What is the strategy to prevent hyperinflation?JS: There is none. There is only one exit strategy
and that is a significant economic recovery in which there can be
practical means to drain the liquidity. If balance sheets of banks,
individuals and businesses are improving because of earnings then if you
drain liquidity from those balance sheets you wouldn’t bust them. All
of this is a balance sheet consideration.

FM: So how do you drain liquidity?JS: You would have many means of draining and they
all would be ok because you wouldn’t bust the recovery; you might mute
it. You might not go into the great bubbles we’ve gone into of asset
values. You might have a feel of what 1950 to 1970 felt but for those of
us who lived and did business in those times, it wasn’t so bad. This is
the strategy. It is not a decision, it is an absolute necessity. There
is no other way to keep interest rates down.FM: We have been dancing around QE3; is it coming?JS: It already happened: In December when the Fed
did the [approximate] $600 billion in swaps that went to the ECB, [and]
went from the ECB to the major banks of the ECB. The Fed had basically
debt monetized the euro. Quantitative easing comes in many different
ways. But there is no program for drain. The method of applied economics
since Nixon is management of perspective economics: If the public
perceives business is improving it will improve. Therefore, you can keep
equity markets high, you should be able to manage the economic
perspective of economic decision-makers. The new school of economics is
MOPE, management of perspective economics, and it is practiced
everywhere.FM: What if political pressure on Bernanke prevents him from continuing QE?JS: That is why Ron Paul can’t win. The desire to do
the right thing would be absolutely the wrong thing. The explosion you
would hear economically, you would hear on Mars. The right things only
can be done in conditions of economic ease. You can’t have a gold
convertible currency. You can’t at this point in time violently drain
the system. That whole mountain of notional value will descend on us
all. The idea that we are going to have a change in administration, in
an extreme sense, isn’t going to happen. The other candidates that have
any possibility of being able to [beat] President Obama wouldn’t make
much change. The only one in there who would make great change — and it
would be wonderful intellectually and horrible practically — [is Ron
Paul]. We are in a box, there is one way out, there is only one tool
available, quantitative easing.FM: Your equation that compares U.S. external debts to the
value of U.S. gold reserves to calculate an indicative gold price has
been used to give a potential gold price of more than $13,500 an ounce.JS: That is how I [predicted] $900 in 1974 for that
bull market. I don’t like to discuss it now because the debt has grown
so much, but if you do the figures on international debt and say that
the amount of gold that the U.S. says it has, times the price of gold
would equal international debt, you’d be talking about $12,400 per oz.
for gold.FM: Is that still viable?JS: It is not viable because of the environment. Every tool known to mankind would be used to prevent that from happening.FM: Your web site, MineSet, includes a pretty eclectic group
of international stories and commentary. Your motto is “Who will watch
the watchers?” What does that mean?JS: Who really sees what we talked about today? Do
you recall that the BIS reduced the value of the notional value of the
entire OTC derivatives from 1 quadrillion 144 trillion down to $700
trillion simply by changing the computer model for valuation? That is
watching the watchers. The Swift system is a tool of combat that can
disable a country economically with a flash of a delete button. It is so
powerful that we scared the hell out of the Indians; they are already
starting to talk accommodation.FM: What are you trying to accomplish by it?JS: I have a wealth of knowledge. I’ve made 35 OTC
markets. I’ve traded all my life. Markets run in my blood. Should I die
with this knowledge or should I publish it? It’s not brain surgery,
it’s called attention. I don’t have a lot of outside interests; I love
my business and I love trading. I think this all of the time.FM: Are you still trading?JS: Of course. I can’t stop. Anything that is attractive at the time: From soybeans to rice to gold.FM: Where is gold going this year?
JM: I am looking for the real range for gold, post-June, being $1,700
on the low end and $2,100 on the high end. We have a strong dollar
policy that is interpreted as not allowing the dollar to drop
precipitously but intervening to moderate the decline. We also have a
weak gold policy, which is not to depress the price of gold but to
intervene in the gold market so it doesn’t start screaming to extreme
prices. The primary level it must not go above is $1,764 but that will
fall in time and the next level after $1,764, I assure you, is $2,111 it
must not go above. That is the weak gold policy and you do have the
legal intervention in those markets by the Exchange Stabilization Fund
and other entities. The Exchange Stabilization Fund is run by two
people, the President of the United States and the Secretary of the
Treasury.
What you don’t want gold doing when you are trying to calm the
system, is go ballistic. Our entire world is a sea of algorithms and the
people who intervene in the markets are more savvy than your general
hedge fund industry. So the weak gold policy is not a policy to decrease
the price of gold but a policy to prevent it from being a tattletale at
the wrong time. Right now they think $1,764 is tattletaling and that
has been the swing point for gold ever since it broke over $1,650.

1. $BPGDM is back to 10 as of May 8th. Consider bookmarking stockcharts.com. I guess this time it won't pussy out and we can see 0. Or does it also go negative? And how long can it stay at 0? Til the puking's done?

2. I still like Calibre mining, but nobody else does.

3. Indeed, gold stocks do fucking suck. You are an intelligent person with a beautiful mind. Come back regularly for more on the topic.

I'm sorry but you're not getting any answers from me when the wheels fall off the truck like this. Quit coming here. Fuck off, I'm busy at my day job. You want reassurance? Here: take all your money out of the market, go down to the reservation, and buy yourself a large quantity of illegal automatic weaponry.

All I can say is, puking gold and silver is either outright manipulation by the Zionist Occupation Government, or outright panic by margin-strapped Euro banks all trying to get to 100% cash and hide under their desks in anticipation of the coming mushroom cloud. ZeroHedge has one opinion, the FT has another. Fuck if I know which is true, but the effect of either is the same to me.

Gold losing $1600 is bad according to TA. The junior miner investors all watch the TA so they all pile out. Silver losing $30 is bad by round number theory. The algos running buy/sell decisions for the hedge funds see that and puke GDXJ. When this happens at the same time as OMG Teh Greese you get a rush for the exits. This time there was no significant bounceback at the end of the day in the miners even as S&P and Q bounced back.

Previous post showed a whole bunch of companies breaking down below, or even gapping below, their lower bollinger band. The market's gone 3-sigma negative, not just in chickenshit stocks but in the braindead-good ones too. A market failing to follow fundamentals, or even statistical norms, means only one thing.

Panic and fear.

Two. Two things. Panic and fear.

And risk-off. Three. Three things.

It lasts for today only. Or maybe it keeps on like this for the next month. Take your pick which makes you feel better. I got no clue.

But on a breakdown like this I grab my bugout bag, hop on my Vespa, and take the sideroads to my bunker in the Blue Mountains with the guns and the MREs and the guns with MREs in them. Don't short it, don't long it, just avoid it til teh stoopid stops. I'll be logging in with my solar-powered computer from time to time to see when GDXJ breaks back above its EMA(20).

If you want my advice, just go and form a heavily-armed militia. If that'll make you feel better.

Silvercrest. Small silver miner, once thought to have a growth potential. Gap lower, below lower bollinger, price almost down 50% from this year's high. Once, long ago, before they had any mine at all, with silver at (I forget) maybe around $15, you were able to buy SVL at $1.

Monday, May 7, 2012

European Union trade chief Karel De Gucht said Monday
the bloc will shortly take action against Argentina's government, after
its decision to seize control of oil giant Repsol's YPF subsidiary.

"We will soon be moving forward with a response to Argentina's action
in the Repsol case, in particular," De Gucht said in a speech during
which he complained of a "growing tendency towards protectionism across
Latin America, bitch."

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner on Friday signed a bill
expropriating 51 percent of YPF's stock from Repsol, its majority
shareholder, sealing a measure that has roiled the country's trade ties
with Europe.

"Argentina has also continued other trade restrictive policies, like its import-licensing regime, bitch," De Gucht added.

"And just last week we saw Bolivia take another step towards nationalising utility companies at the expense of a Spanish firm.

"These types of moves are of course a problem for Argentina and
Bolivia -- which will find it harder to secure the international
investment they need, bitches," he underlined.

Is Brent Cook Otto Rock?No. In fact, with my secret inner knowledge and all, I've decided to sum up some immediately apparent differences for you with the following chart:

I might have 1 or 2 of those wrong though. But certainly the differences add up the less I think about them.

B2Gold buy or sell 2012? Fuck, the chart looks like puke, what do you think? Any downside left now? I'd think if Nicaragua goes to war with Namibia and nukes are involved, BTO might go down some more, but that's about it.

Is the market going to go down because of french election? well CAC40 and MIB and Spain went up, so... no. But I do understand your desire to puke profitable gold miner stocks into nonexistent bids. Please, keep it up, you utter fucking spineless cunt. Just don't come running to me asking which Seeking Alpha pundits to follow for tech stock reccies, or whatever you're going to move on to.

Meant to do this for a long time, recent conversation with someone reminded me.

One of my favourite guys out there is Sean Kennedy. You know Berwick? Kennedy is like Jeff Berwick, except utterly uncluttered with all that Ayn Rand/Ludwig von Mises libertopian ideology; instead he comes from the gawth EBM/William Gibson/guns & ammo/hacker/anarchist world.

He had a podcast called "NewsReal" that ran every day for maybe a year... then he formed a cult named KULT, immediately burned out, went on hiatus, and returned much later to do his podcast again, except switching to weekly to maintain sanity longer. The podcast was a "global sit-rep on corpolitical tyranny, technology and trends", and was basically on creeping government totalitarianism, hacking, military research, psy-ops, transhumanism, and so on. It was always a better listen when his sidekick was around to keep him from running off the rails. They did 500 episodes, many were fun, and nothing can stop you from going and tracking them down yourself if you know how to use the fucking internet.

Anyway, what he did with his life that's really great was a multi-episode miniseries of spoken-word dystopian futurist sci-fi called Tales from the Afternow. The backstory to it is, he basically just took the dystopian technological trends we see in the world today, extended them into the future 100 years or so, and just rapped out what stories came out from the extrapolation. The hook is, he's found a way in the future to broadcast these stories back into the past, in an attempt to warn us of our post-apocalyptic doom.

Frankly, it's about as fleshed-out and interesting as anything you'll find by Bill Gibson or PK Dick Bill Burroughs. (PK Dick's in his own league - he was actually insane and the books were his delusion, go read VALIS if you didn't already know this.) Kennedy's really a great storyteller, so it's kinda sad that now all he does apparently is a podcast on scuba-diving.

They are in some kind of order, but there are some episodes (#6 and #8, and everything after #15 which really seemed to have been the climax) that aren't seemingly connected to the others. My own suggestion is to listen to 1-5, 7, 9, and then 10-15. That's around 13 hours of listening. Don't put it on in the background. Sit and listen like it's an old radio play.

PS to all Sean's fans - no, this blog is not a reliable source and no you cannot use it as a reference for your damn Sean Kennedy/RantMedia articles on Wikipedia already. Quit being fanboys.

You've got to be shitting me. The opposite of austerity is money-printing, which is positive for copper. Oh and - exactly how much copper does Greece consume in order to produce their olive oil, foul-smelling booze and swastika armbands? As opposed to... say... CHINA?

Disappointing jobs data from the United States also
added to global economic concerns, weighing on riskier assets like
equities and commodities.

* The most-active August copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dropped 1.3 percent to 57,570 yuan ($9,100) a tonne by 0115 GMT. * Socialist Francois Hollande
swept to victory in France's presidential election on Sunday in a swing
to the left at the heart of Europe that could start a pushback against
German-led austerity.

And... wait... Eurozone austerity was good for copper? And good for China, who buys 40% of world copper production?

* Greek voters punished pro-bailout ruling parties,
throwing the future of the bailout scheme for the country into doubt.
While vote counting is still going on, the conservative New Democracy
and socialist PASOK, who have dominated Greece for decades, might only
scrape the 151-seat threshold needed for even the most fragile majority
in parliament.

And... Greece produces what? Other than Neo-nazis and surly fat moustached rapists sitting in cafes complaining about how they had it so much better under... I dunno, the Ottoman yoke?

Seriously... what does Greece even do?Besides driving the Mediterranean tuna into extinction?

* U.S. employers cut back on hiring in April and more people stopped looking for work, troubling signs for President Barack Obama whose re-election prospects could hinge on his handling of the economy.

You know you just noted Obama wants to get re-elected... you think he might have an interest in goosing jobs numbers soon, with... I dunno... austerity?- no wait, austerity doesn't add jobs... how about... stimulus?

* The euro zone economy worsened markedly in April,
according to business surveys. Friday's purchasing managers indexes
(PMIs), primarily covering services, suggested a recession across
Europe's currency union could now extend to mid-year and be deeper than
previously thought.

Did this happen over the weekend or something? Cos I seem to remember this having been in the news for the past fucking year or so.

* Economists at most major Wall Street firms still see
about a one in three chance the Federal Reserve will launch another
massive round of monetary stimulus in an effort to prop up the economy, a
Reuters poll on Friday showed.

Which... is... bad for copper? Stimulus and money-printing are... bad for copper? I don't get it....

* A top Federal Reserve official painted an improving
picture of the U.S. economy on Friday but said lofty unemployment, a
festering crisis in Europe, and the year-end expiration of stimulative
tax cuts make continued easy monetary policy a must.* For the top stories in metals and other news, click , or

MARKET NEWS* Risk assets fell broadly on Monday after elections in
Greece and France fuelled questions about whether struggling euro zone
economies will continue to pursue austerity measures which are seen by
markets as crucial to resolving the bloc's debt crisis.

Or they could just print money the way socialist lands like Europe are expected to.

Seriously, has the plutocratic corrupt bankster-owned incompetent right wing been in power in everycountry of the world for so fucking long that everyone's now forgotten how the other side of the spectrum does things?

May 6, Athens - Greece is still a clusterfuck. For those of you born in the last week, a history lesson: Greece has been a clusterfuck ever since the Ottomans left. Today's election changed nothing, for better or for worse. And by the way, give your fucking head a shake if you think the Neo-Nazis and the Communists are going to work together in an anti-Euro bloc.

May 6, Paris - France elected a socialist. For those of you who were born in the past 5 years, France is typically socialist, and Sarkozy's Berlusconi impersonation of the past few years was an aberration. Oh, and by the way: a 75% tax on millionaires, and higher taxes on energy companies and banks, is the smart socialist way to fix the economy. Taking money away from the working class to hand it over to the bankers is the wrong way.

Now go back to reading all those bullshit headlines about the markets being down because Greece remains a clusterfuck and France is back to normal. Because this is so fucking much a watershed moment. Don't bother to look at the Nikkei, where things are down because oil is down.